04/26/2018
Parent's number ONE struggle with pediatric professionals: Waiting in the wrong line.
Picture the last time you stood in a long line of people waiting to take care of something important like drivers license renewal, post office run, or call-in tech support. After a long wait, you finally reach the front of the line only to be told by customer service that you had been standing in the wrong line. This time-wasting scenario has happened to most of us, but how and at what cost?
Maybe the signs were not clear or you read them wrong. Maybe you were told to wait in that line by someone you trusted or someone who looked knowledgeable enough. Maybe part of you sensed that you were waiting in the wrong line but you dismissed your intuition and stood there anyway.
We all know the feelings that follow - frustration, anger, blame.
I see this all the time as someone who helps parents with special needs kids. By the time many parents contact me to help their child, they may have diligently sought qualified help but may have been in the wrong line (or lines) for a long, long time. They have also usually spent a small fortune. They feel angry, confused, and discouraged. In my work, "standing in the wrong line" happens when a parent is encouraged to get help with a behavior that doesn't necessarily match the underlying problem(s). They might get a label of ADHD and be encouraged to start stimulants when the real problem is a sensory processing or a visual problem. They might get referred to therapy for defiant behavior and school refusal when the real problem is an undetected learning disability. They might come with what seem to be serious psychological symptoms, when the root of the problem is an allergic reaction to a medication or an interaction effect of medications.
The parents I work with have sought out the most trusted pediatric professionals - teachers, pediatricians, allergy, asthma and other specialists, psychologists and counselors, occupational therapists and speech therapists, tutors and coaches - all who love children and are passionate about helping families! When we do indeed find a mis-diagnosis or a missed diagnosis, parents always say to me, "Why didn't anyone think to look at this?" and, "It feels like we've wasted all this time."
I truly believe parents and professionals do the very, very best they can to reach the most accurate diagnoses and treatment decisions with the information they have available. The trend I see as a diagnostic clinician, is that each professional sees children primarily through their respective lens - myself included (diagnoses in my field are guided by the DSM-5 but I found that I needed to learn even more)! With all the information at our fingertips, how does a mis-diagnosis or a missed diagnosis happen? Diagnosis - formal or informal, inaccurate or incomplete - is the way we start out in the wrong line, for the help we need, to resolve the root of the problem we have.
Generally speaking, all views are valid. All can provide a necessary piece and still be insufficient to understand the problem and the solutions available! We need to understand the entire child to ensure that we "pick the best line." For example, seeing the right ENT doctor for correcting a tongue tie may be necessary before working on picky eating with a feeding therapist before digging in to intensive speech therapy. Testing for strep or Lyme may be necessary to identify and treat an infection before parent coaching and behavioral therapy with a child who is presenting with unpredictable, explosive, raging tantrums. Also, I have to know what resonates with each family. Some prefer to treat an infection with antibiotics, while others may prefer homeopathy. This is why I love what I do! I love helping by learning about all the different paths to healing available to families and then pointing them to the line that best fits their child and their own resources and preferences.
Before standing and waiting in line, when it comes to your child's care, ask if the professionals helping you are invested in a comprehensive, holistic view of your child. Do they consult and communicate with a variety of pediatric professionals on cases to inform and expand their knowledge base? Do they value your intuitive wisdom in addition to their own expertise?
Finding and working with an integrative or holistically minded professional or assembling your own team of local integrative professionals can be the key to navigating your child’s path to health and wellness. (TIP: search “pediatric” with the terms: integrative, functional, holistic and complimentary - in your area - and see what comes up!)
In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more from parents who have found themselves in the wrong line, how they got there, and how they found their way.
If this kind of approach to helping appeals to you - please give us a call or visit our website!
www.neurodevelopmentx.com/about
*If you want to learn about the holistic approach as a parent or professional helper, consider this life-changing, on-demand training:
https://epidemicanswers.org/course/health-coach-training-course/
Looking forward to our next topic - stay tuned!
*We have no financial gain or incentive to recommend EpidemicAnswers.org (501c3) - we just think they're amazing!
